Core Build

Late Game / Luxury Items

Situational Items

Runes for Caitlyn

Masteries for Caitlyn

Table of Contents

Summary

Caitlyn is a ranged AD carry. She is most effective in mid, can lane well and is not a jungler/roamer.

The objective of Caitlyn is to support the team by dealing damage from range forcing the enemy to either retreat or push forward to kill you, enabling your team to pick them off or be ready for the initiation. Caitlyn is also a bonus to the map awareness. Traps can be used to keep awareness on ganking zones and keep tabs on all kinds of things. Caitlyn can sometimes pass off as an assassin due to her alts range, she can easily move towards a lane from mid or even the jungle and snipe off the kill. Caitlyn is also a basic attack champion. Her skills are great and beneficial but her basic attacks are what shred enemy champions.

Abilities

Headshot is an awesome passive. It helps harass and farm minions including jungle mobs. Initially you will use this to shoot at enemy champs as much as possible, but while Caitlyn may have a large range take care when moving in to take the shot since many champs can jump to you with their own skills or Flash.

Being in a bush cuts the shots required for headshot in half, but this will probably never play into your plans unless your are getting red buff.

When farming minions it is important to attempt headshots on minions that are at full hp and not wasting it on almost dead minions. Using it on a cannon minion is always a good way to use it.

Piltover peacemaker is an excellent skill perfect for farming and harassing the enemy champions. However this will drain mana very fast if it is used over and over so it is best to not use it unless you are going either A. Hit the enemy champion or B. hit as many minions as possible (and hopefully the enemy champ as well).

Predicting the enemy movement can be difficult for some, but after some practice it becomes very simple. A lot of players click the same to spots moving back and forth, timing the actual path of the shot is what counts.

Tip #1 Move towards an enemy champ like you are going to come too close, they will more than likely begin moving towards you to use a skill. When this happens click away and use piltover. The enemy champ 90% of the time will not get out of the way.

Tip #2 Use range to your advantage, sit back and shoot minions click Q so that you can see the range of the skill and wait for the enemy to move just in range. Most enemy champs will think they are safe or wont notice you are using your skill because you were auto attacking a lot.

A beautiful skill that can save your life and or a teammates life. It can even win some team fights. This is not a form of CC though. IT IS A TRAP. Ok I lied there is one important situation it can be used as a form of CC in combat however it is only useful if the enemy is slowed by a large percent or they have been stunned, Rooted, Knocked up and you are in range. The goal is to lay a trap in the direction the enemy champ is trying to run. it is 99% guarantee that they will run into it.

This skill is also mana costly but should be spammed up to 3 times. It is very important to have traps placed. Put them in the obvious places people walk into. Small jungles behind the first mid turret, the small jungle at the mouth of the stream on each lane.

Placing them can also deter enemy champs from advancing, especially putting one in front of you and shooting from this position. When pushing a turret you can lay a trap down in front of you and shoot the turret, if an enemy champ attempt to charge you they will hit he trap. You will still take damage but you get a head start run, and if you are smart you will run into a bush that already has a trap there ;D

This skill has only one purpose. Survivability. I have used it as a way to slow down the enemy when my mana was low and I had nothing else to do. It can help teammates catch up.

This should be used to cross walls such as the ones connecting to the bushes in mid lane and to get into or out of dragon. These are the most common and for sure ways of escape. Other areas can be jumped through, but it is very risky.

This is the BEST! Actually it is rather mediocre. It does damage, it scales decently with AP and it does..damage. Well it does have a good use. Sniping enemy champs that are low from a good distance away is what it is mainly used for. It is very slow though both the induction and the actual shot itself. On top of that it can be intercepted by other enemy champions and become useless. Timing this skill is key, but not using is is also a waste so just try and pay attention.

Tip #1 Look for the fool, that enemy champ that runs to your turret that is almost dead and says, \"I am going to kill this even if it is hitting me.\" They get hit a few times, may kill your turret or they may run away because they are being killed by that turret love beam. Either way when this happens try to be in range and just shoot away when you can kill them in one shot.

Tip #2 Look for the killshot. Team fights can be very hectic and distracting. Your ult is almost invisible when the right animations and effects are flashing on the screen. Choose that fleeing Carry or almost dead character that is not THE TANK (unless the tank is the only one left) and take the shot. A good portion of the time an enemy champ will notice this shot attempt to intercept and fail miserably at stopping it.

Skill Build

Masteries + Runes

Damage again is key. Working your way down the offensive tree you pick up crit, attack speed, extra damage and extra damage to minions all the way to the +5%. Spend the last 9 points in utility giving some mana regen and a little movement speed. The extra xp and -res time is nice, but you get XP for being alive and you out level the enemy champ if you harass and push your opponent from the lane ( I never have problems leveling faster than champs that have the exp perk.)

x9 Armor pen enables early game damage to break some of those low armor champs and help pen overall. The more pen an enemy champ has the more damage they reduce based on a %.

x9 I have a lot of people argue that strait attack damage is the better way to go, but I have to disagree. It is more beneficial to crit. Mana regen runes are worthless now, attack speed is a percent while awesome not useful on Cait because her base is low. Crit damage is useless because if you can\'t crit what is the point in increased damage.

Giving the extra crit change means you crit more often at lower levels even without items, and this can help harass early game.

x9 See above.

x3 See above.

Items

First start off with a [item_icon=Doran\'s Blade] (I usually sell this to finish Infinity edge). I haven\'t found a better starting item yet. Caitlyn can use her range to life-steal from a safe distance which can make up for a potion.

Next is your boots! You must have boots, that speed boost is important and the attack speed boost is from [item_icon=Berserker\'s Greaves] helpful.

Normally I begin to build into by picking up a [item_icon=B.F. Sword].

My core set is most often this: [item_icon=Berserker\'s Greaves] [item_icon=Wit\'s End]

Building this gives a lot of attack power, attack speed and a little on hit as well as a little bonus magic damage.

It depends on how the game is going and what champs you are going against, but it could be beneficial to build some of these items.

[item_icon=Madred\'s Bloodrazor] - This is good to get when the enemy champs are stacking HP and or hard to kill because of HP (Singed).

- Great against champs like Jax that dodge very often. Activate and let the shots hit away.

- Need some self healing? Answer.

There are various other items you could use and other builds but I find this to be very effective cost and actual usefulness.

Avoid

- seems great! but you could be pumping money into something else. If the Brutalizer built into something it would be a perfect first item build or early item build, but it doesn\'t.

- This seems awesome! What you can gank from mid lane without leaving it? You get tons of kills! Awesome, don\'t get this. It isn\'t worth it, you have to obtain stacks and some games you get more assists than actual kills. If you team is smart and lets you get the kills then this may work, but usually it doesn\'t. We are looking at a high level gameplay not owning noobs to build up your Occult sword.

Summoner Spells

This is very open because Summoner Spells are based on play style.

I recommend for A. Survivability and B. For getting back to lanes and ambushes/pushes you should use & . Teleport is very useful for moments such as the enemy team all pushing top lane and you teleport south and the remaining 4 teammates defend the top tower. Either the enemy team disbands to come get you or you get a tower.

Flash is good for when 90 caliber net is down, and it can also be used in with the net to escape ganks. Flash can also be used to finish off the enemy champ. Whittle their health down and when they think they are going to turn around to B flash next to them so you can get the finishing shots off as they run away.

Strategy

Supposedly this guide has no strategy, so if you carefully read over everything I have written you will notice the strategy involved in using the skills and the initial summary which explains your uses as Caitlyn. I do not have a super computer these days or I would make recorded videos of the game and show some strategies visually. Please READ the whole guide.